Claudia Grisales

Before joining NPR in June 2019, she was a Capitol Hill reporter covering military affairs for Stars and Stripes. She also covered breaking news involving fallen service members and the Trump administration's relationship with the military. She also investigated service members who have undergone toxic exposures, such as the atomic veterans who participated nuclear bomb testing and subsequent cleanup operations.

Prior to Stars and Stripes, Grisales was an award-winning reporter at the daily newspaper in Central Texas, the Austin American-Statesman, for 16 years. There, she covered the intersection of business news and regulation, energy issues and public safety. She also conducted a years-long probe that uncovered systemic abuses and corruption at Pedernales Electric Cooperative, the largest member-owned utility in the country. The investigation led to the ousting of more than a dozen executives, state and U.S. congressional hearings and criminal convictions for two of the co-op's top leaders.

Grisales is originally from Chicago and is an alum of the University of Houston, the University of Texas and Syracuse University. At Syracuse, she attended the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she earned a master's degree in journalism.

The Pentagon revealed on Wednesday the full list of $3.6 billion in military construction projects that will get shelved to help build a wall along the U.S.- Mexico border, according to documents obtained by NPR.

Lawmakers from Virginia to Arizona learned their states will lose millions in military construction projects as part of the plan.

As a major storm heads for Puerto Rico, the Department of Homeland Security and its Federal Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday they will move $271 million in funds to support President Trump's border enforcement efforts.

After back-to-back mass shootings, residents in one Houston suburb are demanding members of Congress finally take action to stop a deadly trend in America.

Fort Bend County is home to Sugar Land and other cities where demographics and political stripes are dramaticallychanging. And voters in the 22nd congressional district who have elected Republicans opposed to major gun restrictions in recent years may be considering giving a Democrat the job in 2020.

Early last year, President Trump riffed on an idea he called "Space Force" before a crowd of Marines in San Diego.

It drew laughs, but the moment was a breakthrough for a plan that had languished for nearly 20 years.

"I said maybe we need a new force, we'll call it the Space Force," Trump said at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in March 2018. "And I was not really serious. Then I said, 'What a great idea, maybe we'll have to do that.'"

The political fight over the humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border ratcheted up today. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan testified for several hours during a pretty emotional congressional hearing.

Homeland Security acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan says the U.S. has apprehended more than 800,000 migrants attempting to enter the country since last October, calling the numbers staggering and unprecedented, and that the influx has "challenged and overwhelmed every aspect of our border and immigration enforcement system."

Still, McAleenan said DHS "made significant strides in its effort to secure the border and help and protect migrants in our custody."

The Pentagon's comptroller said it cost an extra $1.2 million to put on its portion of President Trump's "Salute to America" program for an expanded Fourth of July celebration in Washington, D.C., last week.

Defense Department officials said on Tuesday spending for personnel involvement and demonstrations largely came from their training budgets.

President Trump announced he planned to repeat his 4th of July salute to the military next year as a trio of Senate Democrats called for an investigation into how much the Washington, D.C., event cost the taxpayers.

"It was a wonderful day for all Americans and based on its tremendous success, we're just making the decision and I think we can say we've made the decision to do it again next year, and maybe we can say, for the foreseeable future," Trump said at an event at the White House on Monday.

President Trump may not be seeing red, white and blue on a newly revamped Air Force One after all.

A House Democrat added a provision to the annual defense policy bill to put a stop to the president's patriotic design project. It will keep two new versions of the Boeing 747 aircraft within the projected spending target by banning certain paint jobs and other extras.